Traditional methods for fabricating dental restorations involve a dentist providing a dental laboratory with a physical impression of a patient's prepared tooth using impression materials or a digital scan of a patient's prepared tooth generated by a scanner, such as an intra-oral scanner. The fabrication of the dental restoration is then prepared remotely at the dental laboratory, requiring the patient to return to the dental office at a subsequent day to be fitted with the dental restoration upon receipt from the dental laboratory.
Other methods for fabricating dental restorations require a dental office to purchase and maintain all of the equipment necessary for fabricating the dental restoration for a patient, including the scanner, the software for designing the dental restoration, and the mill and the associated software for shaping and preparing the dental restoration. This method requires the purchase and maintenance of expensive equipment, as well as ongoing training of dental office personnel.
This document describes systems and processes for fabricating dental restorations without the need to have multiple visits by a patient and without the costly equipment and training of personnel at a dental office. This document further describes authentication and security aspects for the fabrication of dental restorations to verify the use of authorized materials and/or authorized processes in fabricating the dental restorations.